tibetanmethod | (no subject)

(no subject)

Heidi is working the night shift tonight, as she has been for the last several weeks. Norma Jennings is in Brazil, and that means that Shelly -- Norma's second in command at the Double R Diner -- needs to be around during the day.

She looks up as the bell on the door jingles; Cooper is holding it open for Moiraine. He gestures to a booth on the lefthand side, and they take a seat.

When Heidi makes her way over, Cooper and Moiraine find out that today is a special on cherry pie, since cherries are in season. Also, there is peanut butter.

Cooper leans forward and says to Moiraine, very confidentially, "I recommend the cherry."

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Cooper gets a suspicious scowl.

Moiraine takes a sip of her tea, tranquilly observing them both.

When all else fails.

Cooper embarks on a crash course in Tibetan history during the period in which the Mongols invaded.

" -- the same one as Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote about." Beat. "You know, he was supposed to have dreamed that poem."

"It is not impossible, I should think," she murmurs.

"Many things can be learned in dreams, after all." A beat. "Certain sorts of dreaming are closely connected to prophecy, in fact."

Now it's Cooper's turn to look (almost) sharply at Moiraine.

It's the Log Lady's turn to look serene.

She glances back at him, then takes another sip of tea before setting the cup on its saucer with a precise 'clink' and turning to Margaret.

"Or perhaps I should ask you of such matters, given your particular insights when last we met."

Another round of footsteps from the other room.

"Perhaps," the Log Lady says, blinking.

Not owlishly, though.

"Although you do not seem to have your log with you as confidant and informer," she murmurs. "One wonders if the change has affected your perceptions?"

"Drink your tea," she says, shortly. "It's going to get cold."

Cooper leans forward. "Margaret, that's why you asked us here. Isn't it."

A man's voice comes from the other room. Talking to himself. Reciting.

"In Xanadu did Kublai Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."

"You got what you came for," she says, fierce.

"So it would appear," Moiraine says quietly.

She sets her teacup down and rises to her feet, inclining her head to the other woman as she does.

"Light illumine and protect you, Margaret. Thank you for the tea."

As the door closes behind them, Cooper says, very quietly, "Did we?"

"It would seem so," she replies, just as quietly. "At the very least we have learned something of substance, and I do not think it likely that she would have been willing to reveal more at present."

Moiraine is frowning slightly.

By the car:

"Moiraine, I think that was her husband."

Shelly got Leo.

Sarah Palmer got Leland.

And Harry got Josie.

"It would seem quite likely," she agrees, and holds off on saying anything more until they are both seated in the car and the engine is running.

Moiraine is looking through the windshield at the cabin, very intently.

"It is the connection between the absence of her log and the presence of her companion that interests me."

"Her log saw things." Cooper puts the car in reverse, and begins to turn it around. "We know that much. And the things it saw -- the meaning was veiled, but the core of it -- it was always right."

"Fire. In the woods."

"'In Xanadu did Kublai Khan,'" she murmurs.

A pause.

"One wonders what exactly he encountered in those woods to begin with. And where."

She glances sideways at him, considering.

Cooper puts the car in drive.

The car begins to move down the road.

"It was an opium dream." Abrupt. "A hallucination brought on by drugs. Assuming Coleridge was telling the truth about the origins of the poem. He was -- assisted."

"Assisted," Moiraine repeats.

Her tone is perfectly neutral.

"I think that's an apt way to describe it." Cooper is slipping into FBI Voice again. "It's one of the most well-known poems in the English language. And assistance isn't always benign."

"No," she says quietly. "No, it is not."

A pause.

"There is something I must do, Dale. Something I need to discern. Pull the car over, at a safe place."

It's dark inside the car.

And silent.

Cooper's jaw tightens.

He pulls the car out onto Route 21. When they get to the bridge over the Columbia River, he pulls to the side of the road before they cross, and puts the car into park.

Very quiet, and very calm: "Will you explain it to me?"

"I will."

Quietly.

"And it will not hurt, in any case, I believe."

That much, she can be certain of. No matter what.

Moiraine holds out both hands to him, waiting.

"I wish to Delve; to see if you have been... affected... by the manner of your return here in light of what else is happening."